


Lying On The Cold Hard Floor

by fangirlsplosion



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Depression, Established Relationship, M/M, Suicide, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5716363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirlsplosion/pseuds/fangirlsplosion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil looks back on his last memories with Dan. Established relationship.</p>
<p>Trigger warnings in the tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying On The Cold Hard Floor

He had so many questions.

  
Like: why wasn't he good enough?  
why didn't he see the signs?  
why didn't Dan come to him for help?  
what did he do wrong?

Brown hair. Walnut eyes. White skin. Angular cheeks.

  
Phil tried not to remember Dan's appearance more than that.  
Adding to the pain was pointless- but then, maybe he deserved it for not coming to Dan's aid.  
_Flashback: The tip of a piece of paper, the edge floating lightly in the breeze, held down by a worn copy of Game of Thrones. A black, untidy scrawl coats it._

**Dan. Dan. Dan.**

  
The first signs that Phil noticed was when Dan would lie in until 3:00. They often slept in late but Dan would go to bed early, and not get up until late afternoon.  
Phil told Dan he was becoming too lazy.  
_Flashback - Two weeks before: Today Dan feels the weight being lifted from his shoulders and the sun raining down on him. That's what I hope he feels- what I think he feels. He's seems like he's been a bit down recently. When Dan kisses me he wraps his arms around my torso and smiles into my mouth. I place a hand on his beating heart and rub my cheek against his. I think to myself 'the world is good'._

There were days when Dan seemed present and cheerful. But when Phil looked back on it, more often than not he seemed... empty. Like he was just an imprint of Dan left on the Universe.

  
When Phil looked back on it, out of the thousand kisses Dan gave him in the months before, only one hundred didn't seem impressions.  
Phil's counsellor had told him to stop looking back.  
As if he could.  
As if he chose to.  
_Flashback: Leaving for the supermarket. Kissing Dan on the cheek. A mouthful of unsaid things. The look of Dan's face when I smile, like he had just dropped my favourite mug on the ground and jumped on it. Smashing it over and over and over into pieces._  
_So it could never be repaired; a billion shards lying cold and hard on the marble floor._  
Later Phil thought: at least he looked guilty.

Afterwards Phil lay on the floor of the hallway, exactly where Dan would lie whenever he felt the overwhelming bigness of the world. He lay there for a whole day until Louise came and took him to stay at her place. 'Just 'till we feel safe about you being on your own,' they told him as if he were a child.

  
At Louise's apartment he was just an imprint. The real him was still lying in broken shards on the cold floor.  
_Flashback: The words._

Dan didn't update his channel for two months before. Whenever Phil asked about it he just shrugged nonchalantly and said he was taking a little break. Phil rolled his eyes at him. 'Dan we don't exactly have a demanding, full-time job.'

  
Dan would shrug again, and then turn away and leave the room as fast as possible before Phil tore down his door. Phil could see it now, looking back.  
Why couldn't he see it then?  
_Flashback: The words? 'I am sorry. I love you. It's not your fault. I promise. I am sorry. I love you. I can't take it anymore. I've been pretending. So it's not your fault. Be happy. Don't do what I have done. Fall in love. Get married. Have kids. Goodbye.'_  
_There are conjunctions to, and in-betweens, and explanations but I skim over those._

Phil didn't have a YouTube channel anymore. It was still up so people could see his old videos, but he no longer uploaded. His counsellor told him that he should take his time, but he would come back to YouTube eventually. Would he? Could he?

  
There wasn't much else left for him now. Phil got a part-time job at a supermarket to cover the rent. It wasn't the same supermarket that Phil left for that day. It didn't matter which was closer.  
He was never going back there.  
Working at the supermarket was easy because it reflected his state of mind perfectly. Dull. Numb. Scan the products vacantly. Pile them in a hollow plastic bag. Fake a smile. Hand the bag over. Repeat.  
Phil had grown so used to faking smiles he was pretty sure he could be an actor. It had become second nature to him, just growing another skin over his face, one that said: **I** **am** **okay**.  
_Flashback: First I feel numbness. Then disbelief. Then terror. Then panic._

Everything reminded him of Dan. The trees with their tall, dark brown branches. The pavement; cold and grey like behind Dan's door. The schoolchildren he passed laughing on the street, full of the youthful joy Dan used to have. Dan wore clothes, so clothes reminded Phil of him, Dan are food, so food reminded Phil of him.

  
Dan _existed_ , or at least he used to.  
_Flashback: I drop the bags on the floor and they land with a heavy thud, just like my heart that is abandoned on the ground beating so hard I might keel over. I snatch the paper, the words already unable to be unread, and Dan's copy of Game of Thrones falls to the floor, the pages curling back. It doesn't matter; as soon as I find Dan I'll get him a new one. I rush through the apartment, checking rooms. I know he hasn't done it yet, or I would have been called by now. I can still save him. The thought almost makes me collapse because what if I don't save him in time? What if I come so close and he still dies?_  
_He isn't anywhere in the house so I sprint out the door, leaving it open and unlocked._

Dan had stopped sleeping with Phil. Ever. They didn’t always sleep together, in fact they only slept in the same bed a few times a week because one person would often want to go to bed far later than the other. So when Dan stopped climbing into bed and cuddling up to Phil’s shoulders, he didn’t notice. Not at first, not until a few weeks later. ‘I’m going to bed now,’ Phil had said, abruptly closing his laptop and stretching as he rose from the sofa. ‘Me too.’ Dan looked relieved. Phil had been bugging him about going to bed too early, sleeping in too late.

  
‘Come on then,’ Phil grinned softly as he took Dan’s hand and pulled him along. Dan’s fingers loosened, untangling themselves from his and dropping to Dan’s side. ‘What is it?’ Phil had bit his lip anxiously.  
And Dan had looked like he’d just be caught in a pair of headlights, secrets flashing to the world in bold and bright caps lock.  
They were _there_. They were blaring directly in front of his eyes, as vivid as a giant, glowing sign.  
Phil would give anything to go back and see Dan. _Really_ , see Dan.  
‘Nothing. I just think I’m ruining my back from all the slouching on the sofa because your bed is really uncomfortable for me now.’  
‘Oh. That’s okay. I’ll just come sleep in your bed then!’  
Phil changed and slipped into bed beside him, ignoring that nagging doubt in his head- _maybe_ _Dan_ _doesn’t_ _love_ _me_ _that_ _way_ _anymore_. He brushed it off, shook it out of his mind, and only remembered when it was too late.  
Dan couldn’t hide himself from Phil when the lights were down, the world was quiet, and it was just the two of them dozing together. His door would open, secrets gush out like torrential rain.  
Phil could see it now, Dan fiercely concentrating as Phil enfolded him in his arms, pressed his nose against Dan’s curls. Holding that door shut with all his might.  
No wonder he struggled to get to sleep.  
_Flashback: Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Where could he be? ‘I need to calm down’, I think, placing a hand over my chest and breathing in and out in slow, deep breaths. Where’s somewhere he could – Oh._  
_In the past, we had always played mind games. Things like “Would You Rather” and “How Would You Commit Suicide”. It was just a game._  
_But Dan had always chosen jumping from a building, flying into the air in his last breaths, his soul expanding across the sky._  
_Tall buildings. But this is_ London _. It’s made of towering architecture! I turn to the women walking past me and grab her arm vigorously. She turns to me, appalled but then see’s the fear in my eyes. “Have you seen a young man? He’s tall, dark brown hair and eyes? He’s wearing black.”_  
_She shakes her head, concern unfurling through her features, and says “Sorry I can’t help you.”_  
_He can’t have got far. He can’t have got far. I was only gone for fifteen minutes! My hand falls from where it was clenching her arm and I stop a group of schoolboys laughing at each other. “I’m really sorry, I’m looking for my friend. He’s tall and he has dark brown hair and eyes, and he’s wearing black.” This fumbles out of my mouth in a matter of milliseconds._  
_“I think so.” One of the boys says. “He was going that way.” He points in the direction of the Isle Offices, a huge building where wealthy businessmen work. I take off, forgetting to say thank you, forgetting everything except the fact, the blatant, undeniable fact that Dan is about to die._  
_I’ve never run this fast in his whole life. My lungs feel like they might combust but I don’t even notice because my whole chest and brain and heart feel like they might implode._  
_“There’s a man standing on the Isle Offices! He’s going to jump!” I hear a teenage girl racing in the opposite direction shout out to her friends._  
_‘No he isn’t.’ I tell myself. ‘He isn’t. I’ll get their first. I’ll pull him back and comfort him and tell him everything’s going to be okay and-'_  
_There is the Isle Offices._  
_And there is Dan._

He didn’t even feel like he missed Dan anymore. He just felt… empty. Like the missing had run his body out, coursed through it until there was nothing left.

  
Not even missing.  
Everything bright, and radiant and wondrous about life was a knife in the chest.  _Reminders_. A billion of them every day, sneaking behind Phil’s back, jumping out when he wasn’t prepared, prickling his skin.  
Phil told his counsellor about the reminders, told her about the memories. He didn’t tell her about the flashbacks.  
He still didn’t know why Dan did it. Phil still had no idea what was behind any of this.  
why wasn't he good enough?  
why didn't he see the signs?  
why didn't Dan come to him for help?  
what did he do wrong?

He’d stopped trying to answer the questions.

_Flashback: I try to scream, but no sound comes out. I have to scream, have to get Dan’s attention. Have to stop him. There is a group of people underneath Dan, all shouting up at him not to do it. Dan is stubborn; he isn’t going to change his mind for a small crowd of strangers. He might for me. He shifts his weight further off the window where he is sitting, staring at the ground with a look of intense focus on his face. And I’m about to scream, and then Dan looks behind him in surprise – someone must have come running, come shouting at him to get off – and I scream and Dan loses his grip and I watch, I watch, and he looks at me, and I can’t tell what his face is saying, but he’s lost his grip and he’s falling, he’s falling, and I’m falling, and he’s screaming, and I’m screaming, and I’m dying, he’s not dying yet but I’m dead already, and the sun is too bright and the sky is soft and he’s flying (but he’s not flying, he’s falling, the ground closer every second), and everyone is screaming now but I can’t hear them, only Dan’s scream that’s ricocheting off my tongue as well and -_

  
_And then he hits the ground and I hit it too._  



End file.
